As to Children of Hurin making money- well, yes, it happened- although I should point out that CT *delayed* its publication to *avoid* piggybacking on the movies’ success. His own purpose was no more than he stated: to realize his father’s ambition of publishing long, detailed versions of the Great Tales, in the one case where it was possible to do so. His declared secondary intent was to bring the First Age materials to a broader audience, those for whom The Silmarillion is too daunting, and those who think of “Tolkien” and The Lord of the Rings as co-extensive.

As he told me at the time, “My publication of ‘The Children of Hurin’ next April as an independent work is, intrinsically, a matter of *much* less mark than the publicity has made it appear. It arose from an idea that I have entertained for years…”

All the same, as I believe I said to French Pony (it’s been a while!), JRRT’s estate has every right to make money on his work. In fact, it is to our advantage that they do. If CT had to give up working on the HoMe (or the Silm!) to work part-time at McDonald’s, students of JRRT’s writings would be extremely bereft.

Your point about scholars of his work asking for S&G to be made available is in keeping with my point in this post. No one is contesting that it should not, but I do disagree with marketing it in such a way that it creates the impression of being another LotR or Hobbit. That is not only unfair to readers and consumers but also–yes, I loathe to say it–reeks of wanting to make a fast buck rather than present a work that deserves to be seen to an audience that will appreciate it.

Whether that is CT’s doing or not is beside the point to me. I have utmost respect for the man, even if I don’t always agree with his choices. I have a hard time believing that the TE has no say in how the book is marketed and presented. As you note, they have more money than Eru and I know that they keep a tight leash on anything that bears JRRT’s name. This is not a first-time author who has the choice of signing her work away or never seeing it in print. If they didn’t want it hyped in a way that might appear unseemly, then it wouldn’t be. And I do hope it’s not.

And there you would be very, very wrong.

Christopher isn’t about the money, and never has been. He already has more money than God, and spends little of it (most goes to charity). The History of Middle-earth barely broke even.. If CT wanted simply to milk the cash cow, then instead of spending over a decade deciphering 12 volumes’ worth of his father’s heiroglyphic handwriting, he could with a stroke of a pen have done an Audrey Geisel (Seuss) and licensed unlimited quantities of merchandising crap.

He published Children of Hurin because his dad wanted the long version of the Tale published, on its own. (and it wasn’t “axed:” all the detail JRRT ever wrote is there on the page.) Christopher has published S&G simply because *we asked him to*- certain Tolkien *scholars* who have known of the poems’ existence for years and pled with him to make them available. It certainly ain’t about the money.

Of course, HarperCollins is ginning up the hy6pe machine, as one would expect. But that assuredly isn’t Christopher’s intent, and he views it with some distaste.

I sympathise because CoH was a cash cow. I really can’t see a reason to publish it, expect to make a fast buck :/ (Now making money isn’t evil, but re-hashing previously published material is sure-as-hell boring!)

I have THoBB and JRR’s Middle English translations in versions that don’t refer to him as ‘Tolkien the novelist’. I’m afraid that I aquired the first because I’d heard he had written a ‘Battle of Maldon’ play – so some of us are unashamedly addicted to alliterative verse Since I was expecting ‘The Battle of Maldon’, it didn’t fail to deliver… but if I’d been expecting an LotR (or even TS), it would have been a surprise!

It’s hard to say where Tolkien’s translations and ‘other fic’ should be published. Not (please!) on teh intrawebz – much as I use and enjoy on-line searches – I really would like a hardcopy in my hand! Call me a luddite, but electronic text != a book. (Pats my poor dog-eared books…)

I’d like to see (reasonably substantial) JRRT drafts of scholarly work published. In as far as possible, as they stand. With minimal redaction. I think we all know who I’m looking at here ;P

And I’d like not to see ‘A New Epic by Tolkien’ plastered across the front cover. A discrete ‘Tolkien translated this because he thought it was a cool story’ will do nicely!

So, will I buy it? Well… I guess I’ll do it the old fashioned way. I’ll go to a bookstore and flick through it. If it tells the story well, I’m sold! If it looks like ‘The Lay of Leithian’… well, I have better things to do then read Tolkien’s bad poetry. (Let’s be honest, some of his poetry is great. And some is not…)

always have been a member of the Túrin fanclub (and have been criticised for it)

WTH?? Then again, I’ve gotten dirty looks for wanting to write about the Feanorians as something more than inherently evil murderers, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Folks will probably feel disappointed and you know, the sales figures will tell the tale (or the reactions to it) and perhaps they will realise that scholar stuff could be promoted differently.

I would think so, but the Silm was reviewed terribly and yet it didn’t slake their enthusiasm. And, as I noted in the post, I do think that this stuff should be published and made available to those who want to read it; I just cringe when I see something that is different from LotR/TH but certainly possessing its own merits being sold using the momentum of LotR/TH and the instant appeal to JRRT’s fanbase whenever that connection to LotR/TH is made. One would think that the generally tepid (or negative) reaction to everything published posthumously would clue TE in that they need to sell these books on their own merits. That they continue to most quickly associate these books with LotR/TH just does not appeal to me at all.

Now, hopefully, they will make a liar of me and publish S&G without a single mention of LotR or TH anywhere on it. But even my copy of JRRT’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight et al manages to attach his reputation as the author of LotR/TH as somehow significant to his role as a Middle English translator, so I doubt it.

But if they do, then I will write an apology to them here in my weble.

No e-editions for me so all is done by hand and typed over, leaved through, post-it littered and all of that.

Oh, I admire you! I would be lost research-wise without my folder of e-books where I can type a name or word I want to find and search the whole collection in a matter of seconds. But I would probably be much more familiar with and knowledgeable about the texts if I did it your way!

I have become a bit cautious, especially being made so buying hungry with the promotion of CoH. I own a very old (and written in archaic Dutch) version of the Edda, so I am not sure if I’d want to buy this book. Yet I love to have a looksie at more on Norse Myth, so I probably end up borrowing it.

This being said, I am not sure what to make of the marketing done by the Tolkien shop and Estate. I occasionally get e-mails of the Tolkien shop, but I never felt that nudge to buy stuff. But I can see what your saying here, especially on how the reviewer you do mention also has to overcome the disappointment that its in verse and not as easy accessible as LotR (btw, I find the first 100 pages of LoTR less accessible than the whole of Silm, so go figure). Folks will probably feel disappointed and you know, the sales figures will tell the tale (or the reactions to it) and perhaps they will realise that scholar stuff could be promoted differently.

(Some, I hear, like to keep a shelf with all their Tolkien books, even though they use e-books for almost all research purposes, just because it looks impressive. *ahem*)

No e-editions for me so all is done by hand and typed over, leaved through, post-it littered and all of that. Oh ain’t I the rebel!

Oh and: I think, too, that as a writer, the thought of someone publishing my unfinished work is … scary?

I already told you before and some years ago: my notes will be burnt upon the publishing of the book, if I one day might get that far. ^-^

Indy: I like alliterative verse too! That makes at least three of us! (You, me, and Moreth.) My favorite period of medieval literature was the alliterative revival.

CoH didn’t thrill me for the same reason and you and Raksha give: Turin’s story has never thrilled me. Oh, I have tried and tried to get into it; I think the fact that he’s so awful because he’s cursed and not simply because of his complex personality (i.e., Feanor … though I know Raksha will protest me on this! ) that makes him very unexciting to me. I did read it; however, it’s not something I’ll probably revisit often outside of using it for research.

Also, I hear you on needing other Tolkien books before S&G! I just completed my HoMe collection this Christmas (Sauron Defeated), for a grand total of around three years!

French Pony: I am not arguing the right of the Tolkien Estate to publish his work. However, I also possess a right to the opinion (which I guarantee you that they don’t give a shit about) to think that it’s crass. Or, if my family had decided to sell off my grandparents’ estate the day after my grandmother died, that would have been their legal right, but people would still also have had the right to think that it was crass.

Who’s to say that a good film director couldn’t make Sigurd and Gudrun into a powerful, sweeping work?

Did I say that?

*goes back to reread post*

No, good, I did not. Maybe you need to reread the post too?

I hear what you’re saying in this part, but I also hear a great deal of what I suspect is inadvertent condescenscion toward The Great Literary Unwashed.

You suspect wrongly. My argument has nothing to do with making S&G available to icky, stoopid fans but entirely with what I perceive as the Tolkien Estate targeting it in such a way with the aim of making money rather than reaching the audience that will best appreciate it, which will include people who consider themselves fans and people who consider themselves scholars. Many icky, stoopid fans (of which I am one, however flattered I may be that you apparently think of me as a “scholar”) will probably love it. I’ve seen a lot of buzz to that effect already from people that enjoyed Wagner’s work and are looking forward to Tolkien’s take on it. But, to me, misrepresenting JRRT’s posthumous work as another LotR is unfair to his fans. It’s not, and such misrepresentation, to me, reeks of preferring to make money over honesty, and that is crass.

Raksha: Thank you, I’m glad I’m not excommunicated yet. By you, at least.

The Silm is depressing, and I hear that critique a lot, and I suppose it says a lot about me as a reader (and a writer) that I wasn’t particularly bothered by that. CoH, though … I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. Like you, Turin’s story never wowed me too much, even though I felt that I should like it more.

I think, too, that as a writer, the thought of someone publishing my unfinished work is … scary? Distasteful? The HoMe notes, I agree, are rather different, as they are supposed to show the evolution of the published stories and so are understood to be indefinite and unfinished. S&G–dare I even say The Silmarillion?–are different because they also were not complete but they’re being presented as complete. I don’t know. It’s a complicated emotion all around, I suppose.

The trouble (for me) with the Silm is that there is just a bit much doomed struggle and good people being killed (like everytime Turin meets someone he likes). We saw that in LOTR, but the hobbits’ optimism and cheer mitigated it, and at the end the Good Guys did triumph, albeit at a price, and it didn’t take 500 years.

I haven’t been able to push myself to buy THE CHILDREN OF HURIN. What I saw of the story in THE SILM was sufficiently depressing; and I don’t really like Turin that much as a person, though his courage is admirable. (also, the suffering of his parents is almost too tragic to read)

If SIGURD AND GUDRUN is part of the Volsung saga, I may skip it. That’’s not one of my favorite parts of Norse myth.

I am glad that Christopher Tolkien came out with all these HoME volumes and the SILM and THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, because they are part of JRRT’s creation of Middle-earth and they enrich my LOTR reading experience; but I’m not sure I feel the same way about scholarly recreations of Norse sagas…And I think it’s okay for a Tolkien fan to feel that way, i.e. not heresy/mortal sin, LOL.